Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

The Tsarnaev family was forcibly moved from Chechnya by the Soviet Union to the Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan in the years following World War II.[23] Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's father, Anzor Tsarnaev, is a Chechen, and his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, is an Avar.[24][25][26] The couple had two sons, Tamerlan, born in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic[27] in 1986, and Dzhokhar, born in Kyrgyzstan in 1993.[28] The parents also have two daughters.[29] Anzor is a Muslim who shuns extremism[30] and raised his children as Muslims.[31][32][33] According to some, other Chechen Americans in the area apparently did not consider the American branch of the family to be "fully" Chechen because they had never lived in Chechnya.[28]

As children, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar lived in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan. In 2001, the family moved to Makhachkala, Dagestan, in the Russian Federation.[34][3][35] In April 2002, the Tsarnaev parents and Dzhokhar went to the United States on a 90-day tourist visa.[36][37][38] Anzor Tsarnaev applied for asylum, citing fears of deadly persecution due to his ties to Chechnya.[39]

Tamerlan was left in the care of his uncle Ruslan in Kyrgyzstan[23] and arrived in the U.S. about two years later.[40] In the U.S. the parents received asylum and then filed for their four children, who received "derivative asylum status".[41] They settled on Norfolk Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tamerlan lived there until his death.[42]

The family "was in constant transition" for the next decade.[23] Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva both received welfare benefits.[43] The father worked as a backyard mechanic and the mother worked as a cosmetologist[44] until she lost her job for refusing to work in a business that served men. In March 2007, the family was granted legal permanent residence.[40]

Tsarnaev was born in Kyrgyzstan on July 22, 1993. As a child, he emigrated with his family to Russia and then, when he was eight years old, to the United States under political asylum. The family settled in Cambridge and became U.S. permanent residents in March 2007. Dzhokhar became a U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012, while in college.[3][38][45] His mother, Zubeidat, also became a U.S. citizen, but it is not clear if his father, Anzor, ever did. Tamerlan, his brother, was unable to naturalize expeditiously due to an investigation against him, which held up the citizenship process.[46] Dzhokhar attended Cambridgeport Elementary School and Cambridge Community Charter School's middle school program.[47] At Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school, he was an avid wrestler and a Greater Boston League winter all-star.[3][42] He sometimes worked as a lifeguard at Harvard University.[48]

In 2011, he contacted a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth who taught a class about Chechen history, expressing his interest in the topic.[49] He graduated from high school in 2011[3] and the city of Cambridge awarded him a $2,500 scholarship that year.[42] His brother's boxing coach, who had not seen them in a few years at the time of the bombings, said that "the young brother was like a puppy dog, following his older brother."[50][51]

Tsarnaev enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in September 2011. He started with a marine biology major with the intent on becoming a director but later changed to nursing.[3][52]

Tsarnaev was described as "normal" and popular among fellow students. His friends said he sometimes smoked marijuana,[53] liked hip hop, and did not talk to them about politics.[54] Many friends and other acquaintances found it inconceivable that he could be one of the two bombers at first,[49] calling it "completely out of his character".[55] He was not perceived as foreign, spoke English without a [foreign] accent,[54] was sociable, and was described by peers as "[not] 'them'. He was 'us'. He was Cambridge."[56]

On the Russian-language social-networking site VK, Tsarnaev described his "world view" as "Islam" and his personal priorities as "career and money".[42] He posted links to Islamic websites, links to videos of fighters in the Syrian civil war, and links to pages advocating independence for Chechnya.[57] Dzhokhar was also active on Twitter. According to The Economist, he seemed "to have been much more concerned with sport and cheeseburgers than with religion, at least judging by his Twitter feed";[58] however, according to The Boston Globe, on the day of the 2012 Boston Marathon, a year before the bombings, a post on Tsarnaev's Twitter feed mentioned a Quran verse often used by radical Muslim clerics and propagandists.[59]

In 2012, Arlington Police ran a warrant check on Tsarnaev and checked his green Honda when they were investigating a report of underage drinking at a party in Arlington Heights.[60]

At the time of the bombing, Tsarnaev was a sophomore living in the UMass Dartmouth's Pine Dale Hall dorm.[59][61] He was struggling academically, having a 1.09 GPA and receiving seven failing grades over three semesters, including Fs in Principles of Modern Chemistry, Introduction to American Politics, and Chemistry and the Environment[42] and had an unpaid bill of $20,000 to the university.[62] He was known to be selling marijuana to make money.[28]

Initially, Tsarnaev was questioned without being read his Miranda rights, because the Justice Department invoked Miranda's public safety exception.[108] He was to be questioned by a federal High-Value Interrogation Group, a special counterterrorism group composed of members of the FBI, CIA and Department of Defense that was created to question high-value detainees.[109][110][111] Later, after being read his Miranda rights, Tsarnaev stopped talking and declined to continue to cooperate with the investigation.[80]

Prosecutors initially argued for the public safety exception to be applied[112] to the statements obtained before the Miranda rights were read. However, the exception was not considered by the court because the prosecutors later decided not to use any of that evidence in their case against Tsarnaev.[113]

On April 22, Tsarnaev was charged with "using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death" and with "malicious destruction of properties resulting in death", both in connection with the Boston Marathon attacks.[1][114] He was read his Miranda rights at his bedside by a federal magistrate judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, nodded his head to answer the judge's questions, and answered "no" when asked whether he could afford a lawyer.[108]

Once convicted, he was eligible to face the death penalty.[115] He was prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys William Weinreb and Aloke Chakravarty, of the Anti-Terrorism and National Security Unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.[116] His defense team included federal public defender Miriam Conrad,[117] William Fick,[118] and Judy Clarke.[119]

Middlesex County prosecutors also brought criminal charges against Tsarnaev for the murder of Sean Collier. A surveillance camera at MIT captured the brothers approaching Collier's car from behind.[120]

After initial interrogations, officials announced that it was clear the attack was religiously motivated, but that so far there was no evidence that the brothers had any ties to Islamic terror organizations.[121][122] Officials also said that Dzhokhar acknowledged his role in the bombings and told interrogators that he and Tamerlan were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs[123] and the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to carry out the bombing.[124][125] Dzhokhar admitted during questioning that he and his brother were planning to detonate explosives in New York City's Times Square next. The brothers formed the plan spontaneously during the April 18 carjacking, but things went awry after the vehicle ran low on gas and they forced the driver to stop at a gas station, where he escaped.[126] Dzhokhar says he was inspired by online videos from Anwar al-Awlaki,[127] who also inspired Faisal Shahzad, the perpetrator of the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt.[128]

Investigators found no evidence that Tsarnaev was involved in any jihadist activities, and, according to The Wall Street Journal, came to believe that unlike his brother Tamerlan, Dzhokhar "was never truly radicalized".[129] Examinations of his computers did not reveal frequent visits to jihad websites, expressions of violent Islamist rhetoric or other suspicious activities. Some law enforcement officials told the WSJ that Tsarnaev "better fit[s] the psychological profile of an ordinary criminal than a committed terrorist".

On May 16, 2013, during CBS This Morning, CBS News senior correspondent John Miller said he had been told that Tsarnaev, while hiding in the boat, wrote a note claiming responsibility for the April 15 attack during the marathon. The note was scribbled with a pen on one of the inside walls of the cabin and said the bombings were payback for the U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and referred to the Boston victims as collateral damage, the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars. He continued, "When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims." He also said he did not mourn his brother's death because now Tamerlan was a martyr in paradise and that he (Dzhokhar) expected to join him in paradise. Miller's sources said the wall the note was written on had multiple bullet holes in it from the shots that were fired into the boat by police. According to Miller during the interview he gave on the morning show, he said that the note will be a significant piece of evidence in any Dzhokhar trial and that it is "certainly admissible", and paints a clear picture of the brothers' motive "consistent with what he told investigators while he was in custody".[130][131][132]

Tsarnaev's arraignment for 30 charges, including four counts of murder, occurred on July 10, 2013, in federal court in Boston before U.S. magistrate judge Marianne Bowler. It was his first public court appearance.[133] He pleaded not guilty to all 30 counts against him, which included using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death.[134] Tsarnaev was represented by Miriam Conrad, David Bruck, William Fick, Timothy G. Watkins and Judy Clarke.[135]

On January 30, 2014, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev.[136] A plea deal failed when the government refused to rule out the possibility of the death penalty.

The trial began on January 5, 2015; Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to all thirty charges laid against him. The proceedings were led by Judge George O'Toole.[137][138] Tsarnaev's attorney Judy Clarke admitted in her opening statement that Tsarnaev committed the acts in question, but sought to avert the death penalty by showing that his brother Tamerlan was the mastermind behind the acts.[139] Counter-terrorism expert Matthew Levitt also gave testimony.

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• Dzhokhar Tsarnaev found guilty in Boston Marathon bombing trial

On April 8, 2015, Tsarnaev was found guilty on all thirty counts of the indictment. The charges of usage of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, in addition to aiding and abetting, made Tsarnaev eligible for the death penalty.[140]

Bill and Denise Richard, parents of Martin Richard (the youngest of the three killed in the bombings and 1 of the 2 people killed by Dzhokhar's bomb, the other person being Chinese-exchange student Lingzi Lu), urged against a death sentence for Tsarnaev. They stated that the lengthy appeals period would force them to continually relive that day, and would rather see Tsarnaev spend life in prison without parole (possibility of release), and waive his right to appeal.[141]

Tsarnaev, who had displayed little emotion throughout his trial, appeared to weep when his relatives testified on May 4, 2015.[142] On May 15, 2015, the jury recommended that Tsarnaev be sentenced to death by lethal injection on six of 17 capital counts.[143]

According to the verdict forms completed by the jurors, three of 12 believed that Tsarnaev had taken part in the attack under his brother's influence; two believed that he had been remorseful for his actions;[144] two believed that Tamerlan, not Dzhokhar, had shot and killed Officer Collier; three believed that his friends still care about him; one believed that Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, was to be blamed for the brothers' actions; one believed that Tsarnaev would never be violent again in prison.

Massachusetts ended the death penalty for state crimes in 1984. However, because Tsarnaev was tried on federal charges, he was eligible for execution.[145]

On June 24, 2015, Tsarnaev faced his living victims in court as his death sentence was formally delivered. Victims and their families were able to present impact statements to the court, and Tsarnaev, who had been silent throughout his month-long trial, apologized to the injured and the bereaved in the bombings.[146]

The following morning, on June 25, 2015, Tsarnaev was transferred to the United States Penitentiary, Florence High in Colorado; as of July 17, 2015 he had been transferred to ADX Florence.[147][148] A Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) spokesperson stated that "unique security management requirements" caused the agency to place Tsarnaev in Colorado instead of United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, Indiana, where male death-row inmates are normally held.[149]

According to The Guardian, in June 2016, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a threat to the United States warning of the "gravest consequences" should Tsarnaev be harmed.[150]

Tsarnaev appealed his sentence on the grounds that the trial should not have been held in Boston, that there were errors in jury selection and that the judge improperly excluded evidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man, Ibragim Todashev, committed a prior triple murder in Waltham on September 11, 2011, arguing that such evidence would suggest that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev acted under the influence of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and was possibly fearful of what would happen to him if he refused.[151]

The appeal was heard by a three-judge panel of the First Circuit on December 12, 2019.[151] On July 31, 2020, the First Circuit overturned the death sentence and three of the other convictions, agreeing that the judge failed to determine how much the potential jurors had been aware of the event during jury selection, and ordered a retrial with a new jury for the penalty phase of his trial. Tsarnaev remained in prison from multiple life sentences carried by the other uncontested convictions.[152][21][153] U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, who wrote the opinion, clarified the ruling of the court. She stated, "Make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution."[154]

On March 22, 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to consider an appeal from the Department of Justice,[155] and on October 13, 2021, the Department of Justice presented arguments in favor of reinstating the death penalty for Tsarnaev.[156] The Supreme Court ruled on March 4, 2022, in a 6–3 decision, that the First Circuit improperly vacated the death sentence that Tsarnaev had been given. The Court reversed the First Circuit's decision, reinstating the death penalty.[22]

On April 7, 2022, Tsarnaev's attorney asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to consider four constitutional claims that had not been taken up in the previous appeal in March 2021. The filing was made in response to an April 6 filing by the appeals court to comply with the previous Supreme Court ruling in March 2022.[157]